


Sun Beams Bursting Off Him, He Never Could Survive in the Dark

by ConstancePenman



Series: Camaraderie Hard Won [2]
Category: Wooden Overcoats
Genre: Death, Gen, Podfic Welcome, but just in case, discussions over a dead body, if you like the podcast youre probably not that squeamish about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 16:29:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15777813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstancePenman/pseuds/ConstancePenman
Summary: Antigone helps Eric prep a body. They're almost done, just the nails to paint now.





	Sun Beams Bursting Off Him, He Never Could Survive in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Title is half-borrowed from a short story my writing somewhere-between-acquaintance-and-friend wrote. I heard her read it aloud and I thought "oh wow Chapman is here."

Eric held four bottles of nail polish, two in each hand, against the late Mrs. Maguire’s skin. He hummed.

“I’m thinking ‘Berlin There, Done That.’ It’s a warm color, and I think the sentiment fits.”

Antigone scowled, scrutinizing the color he was holding out to her.

“Isn’t that too close to her actual skin tone?”

“Oh, it just looks like that in the bottle.”

Eric smoothly replaced the other three bottles in his kit, unscrewed the top of what looked like a beige polish, and painted a strip of his thumbnail.

“See? That’s far enough from her skin, right?”

He  _ was _ right, of course, but she continued studying his thumb and Mrs. Maguire’s hands. No need to give it to him easy.

“Fine,” she said, standing as upright as she could. “It looks good enough.”

Eric recapped the bottle with one hand, careful not to touch it with his still-wet thumb.

“Oh, well I’m sure we can find something better. ‘Berlin There, Done That—’ it’s a bit clunky anyway.”

He grabbed a cotton ball, dabbed it with nail polish remover, and cleaned his nail. She wondered why she never saw him wear these polishes, or any for that matter.

“No, no, no, it’s fine, really. It would look… _wonderful_ on her.”

Eric’s face relaxed into a smile. Not that he hadn’t already been smiling, he was nearly always smiling, but it now seemed more sincere. Or, not sincere, but—

“I admire you, Antigone,” he said, handing her the bottle so she could begin.

“Can’t imagine why.”

“You’re an incredible mortician, for one.”

“So are you.”

“Well. I can’t deny that.”

Antigone grasped Mrs. Maguire’s index finger in lieu of Eric’s neck.

“But really, thank you for helping me out. Scheduling so many funerals so close together, I should know my limits by now!”

“One would think.”

“I know Rudyard must have thrown a fit.”

“No, he didn’t mind at all.”

“Really?” He sounded pleasantly surprised.

“Yes, well, I didn’t actually tell him.”

“Really.” He no longer sounded surprised, pleasant or otherwise. “Where does he think you are?”

“He doesn’t. I told him the cinema—”

“But you go to the cinema on Thursdays.”

“He’ll have forgotten by now either way.”

“Does that ever annoy you?” Eric asked as he passed her a cotton ball to fix the small error she had just made. “How quickly he forgets? Given how good a memory he has.”

“Not really,” she answered. “I mean, does it annoy me? Yes.”

“That  _ was _ the question I asked you.”

“But he’s my brother. He’s meant to annoy me. Besides, I’ve met people far more annoying than Rudyard.”

He laughed, “Who?” as though genuinely curious. 

Antigone looked up from her work to glare at him. 

“Oh.”

He sounded a trifle disappointed at the jab, but she didn’t mind. She finished Mrs. Maguire’s first hand and walked around to get the second. They stood in silence as she worked, Eric’s smile copied and pasted from a poorly directed stock photo.

“Antigone, can I… Can I ask you about something?”

She paused, debated looking at him, then resumed.

“Yes.”

“I know we’re not friends.”

“No. We’re not.”

“I know we’re not. But why—I mean, I understand why we’re  _ not _ friends, but, why  _ can’t _ we be?”

“We’re… competitors, Chapman.”

“Yes, but—”

“And, frankly,” only two nails to go, “I don’t want to _be_ your friend.”

Eric breathed sharply in.

“Ah,” he answered. “Oh. Are you sure?”

She opened her mouth to respond.

“I’m sorry, don’t answer that,” he interrupted. “You don’t have to want that. It’s just hard for me to—”

“Conceive of the idea that not everyone loves you within a minute of meeting you?”

“Partly,” Eric conceded. 

Finished with the polish, Antigone replaced the bottle and edged away from the bright lights that were flooding Mrs. Maguire more for Eric’s sake than her own. She’d long preferred to work in the dark.

“And partly I just—Antigone?”

Eric had turned as he spoke, only to realize he’d lost track of her.

“Yes?”

He found her half vanished into the dark.

“Oh! Ha. I’m… sorry, I—”

“And partly?”

“Right. Uh. And partly, I… I enjoy being with you. All of you. Greatly. Sometimes I wish we could just  be together,” his wording sent a shiver down Antigone’s spine out of old habits, “without having to keep in mind how much I’m supposed to hate you and how much you… hate me.”

Antigone carefully considered Eric’s face, downcast and wrinkled in ways it wasn’t built for. She thought. She spoke, “For what it’s worth, Chapman, I don’t think anyone is under the impression you hate us.  _ Phantom of the Opera _ be damned, you’re a terrible actor.”

The wrinkles disappeared and reappeared in more proper places as he laughed. That was one thing to like about Eric: he’d always thought her jokes were funny. The recognizable ones, anyway.

“Maybe it’s not out of the realm of possibility we could be friends. Eventually. Though I can’t say it’s very likely.”

“Thank you, Antigone.”

There was a pause. Eric took the opportunity to examine Mrs. Maguire’s hands.

“Excellent job on the nails, by the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a tumblr post (warning, there's an image of a corpse): https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/psychanddeath/150688646543
> 
> The corpse is named for Sylvia Maguire from Grantchester, who, spoilers, marries a man named "Chapman." I couldn't resist.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
